Vantara — which means "star of the forest" — is a sprawling wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre in India's west, reputed to be the largest of its kind in the world.?
It boasts thousands of rescued and endangered animals, being cared for in a luxurious, state-of-the-art facility.
It's a private facility, not (yet) open to the public, but prominent YouTubers like adventurer Forrest Gallante have been invited in on private tours, giving viewers glimpses into a paradisiacal world.
Gallante's video received more than 12 million views, and the facility was even spruiked by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on YouTube.
That video received more than 500 million views.
In researching Vantara, the ABC contacted more than 30 conservationists and journalists to see what they thought of the ambitious project.
But it soon became clear that almost nobody in the wildlife space or in the media was willing to speak about the giant facility on the record.
Over the past year, concerns have been quietly growing among many conservationists about the downstream effects of Vantara's rapid expansion.
"Privately, everybody is very upset," one conservationist in India told the ABC on condition of anonymity.
"Publicly, they won't talk."
Conservationists and journalists concerned
While most of the coverage online of Vantara has been positive, several reports have raised questions about how animals are being supplied to the venture, particularly from other countries.
Vantara last year said it had rescued 20,000 animals, but in more recent promotional videos from this year, says it has rescued 150,000 – a big jump.
While there is great support among conservationists globally for a big project to rescue and rehabilitate wildlife, concerns exist around Vantara's potential flow-on effects.
Specifically, that the size and speed of the demand could be fuelling the very illegal wildlife trade it seeks to save animals from.
A joint investigation by prominent German outlet Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and Venezuelan investigative media outlet Armando.info said Vantara had imported more than 39,000 animals, most in the space of nine months between March and December 2024.
"It's a mind-boggling number," said a source in wildlife conservation in Europe.
"It's an unprecedented volume of trade for just one country importing this, a really huge amount. And in the data, we can see more and more countries exporting to Vantara."
Taronga Zoo, Australia's largest zoo, is home to only about 5,000 animals.
The SZ investigation alleged it found irregularities in where Vantara suppliers were getting the animals and in their traceability.
A spokesperson for Vantara told Indian news website The Wire that it gets its animals from places like rehabilitation centres, rescues, overcrowded zoos and distressed regions.
It denied suggestions of impropriety in the procurement of animals, calling the claims "legally untenable".
Vantara said it had initiated legal action against SZ.
SZ told the ABC Vantara's legal department had sent them a "threatening email" prior to publication, but they had heard nothing since.
'Not surprised no-one will talk'
Out of the over 30 stakeholders in India and around the world the ABC reached out to, all but three declined to speak on the record.
Many of those contacted had received legal notices, while others were wary of being sued.
"I'm not surprised nobody wants to talk on the record on this, everybody is scared," said one source in global conservation.
"I and some of my colleagues have received legal notices merely for pointing out facts and asking for it to be looked into," the source said.
"I can't afford to get wound up in endless litigation just for reporting data," said a source in Indian media.
"The money I have is to help the animals where we are, I can't spend it on legal fees," said another wildlife activist in the US.
Vantara did not respond to the ABC's repeated requests for comment.
'A totally different scale'
Ofir Drori, founder and director of Kenyan NGO Eco Activists for Governance and Law Enforcement (EAGLE) Network that fights illegal wildlife trafficking, was one of the few willing to speak openly about the downstream effects of Vantara's demand.
EAGLE Network is an NGO that investigates and assists in prosecuting illegal wildlife trafficking in eight African countries, alongside governments and police.
Mr Drori said he had seen first-hand the effects on the ground on endangered primates like chimpanzees in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the government had decided some of the animals at existing sanctuaries would be sent to Vantara.
"Even people who were upset by their animals being taken away, they didn't want to speak openly about it. It was a kind of fear we hadn't seen before," he said.
"We knew we had to do a press release and we knew we'd get a legal notice about it."
His press release about chimpanzees being improperly imported out of the DRC, questioning whether they were bound for Vantara, did earn him a legal notice.
"We have prosecuted politicians, government officials, military colonels and generals across Central Africa, so threats are not foreign to us and we wouldn't do this if we couldn't deal with it," he said.
"But this is of a totally different scale."
Daniel Stiles has been working as an illegal wildlife trade expert and investigator in Kenya since 1999.?
In February, he received a 104-page legal notice from Vantara over a post on online blogging platform Medium raising similar concerns around the traceability of animals being supplied.
The sanctuary asked him to take it down, publicly apologise, and retract his statements.
He has since taken it down from Medium, but the article is still available online on ResearchGate, an online platform for researchers and scientists to share their work.
"I've been doing illegal wildlife trade investigations for over 25 years, I've never seen anything on the scale of Vantara," he said.
"And theirs is the first legal notice of this kind I've ever received."
Indian media scrub stories
The Wildlife Animal Protection Forum of South Africa (WAPFSA), a coalition of 30 wildlife organisations, sent a letter dated March 6 to South Africa's environment minister, asking him to look into alleged improprieties in how animals were being exported to Vantara from South Africa.
It said it had concerns the transfers could be non-compliant with the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Animals (CITES).
Vantara sent a legal notice to WAPFSA in response, accusing it of defamation and demanding a retraction.
"Transfer of all animals from South Africa to our client has been carried out with full compliance with the South African authorities," Vantara said in the legal notice.
WAPFSA's letter was covered by some Indian media outlets but within days, most of the stories had been taken down.
Indian outlet Scroll was the only one to put up an explanation on its site, it reads "Article withheld in response to a legal demand".
Prominent Indian publication, Financial Express, replaced its story with a more positive article headlined: "Vantara a model for animal welfare: 10 things that makes it unique" while the URL still referenced WAPFSA's letter.?
Indian fact-checking outlet Alt News published the screenshots.
Financial Express did not respond to requests for comment.
Northeast Now, a regional publication that reported on questionable movements of animals from other parts of India to Vantara, got multiple requests to take the critical stories down.
Executive editor of Northeast Now, Mahesh Deka, spoke to the ABC.
"We had several PR companies reach out to us, asking us to take them down and replace them with paid positive content," he said.
"But we said we couldn't do that, it would be against our editorial policy."
Vantara goes to court
Last month, Vantara did take a publication to court in India over their story, which is still up.
Himal Southasian magazine was one of the first to report in-depth about Vantara's activities in India.
In a statement to the ABC, Himal said Vantara had alleged they were in contempt of court for a judgement in an unrelated matter, ?and in a case to which Himal is not a party.
"Himal Southasian shall continue to defend its right to freely report and comment on issues of public interest, in exercise of the right to freedom of speech of independent media," it said.
While all the conservationists spoken to by the ABC were concerned about transparency in how animals were being supplied to Vantara, some were not opposed to what Vantara was trying to do.
"The issue is not so black and white," said one wildlife advocate in India.
"They really do care about the animals and they really do want to create a safe haven for them. They've hired some of the best wildlife experts in the country to work for them.
"That's why this is all so disappointing — we're just looking for transparency and accountability."
The world’s biggest zoo
The over 1,200-hectare facility is located in one of the world's largest oil refineries in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
Once animals arrive at Vantara, they receive care with high-tech medical and rehabilitation equipment, amenities like hydrotherapy pools for injured elephants and other holistic treatments, like massage therapy.
The huge facility is owned by Reliance Industries, which in turn is owned by Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
His son, Anant Ambani, sits on the board of Reliance Industries and runs Vantara, as well as Reliance's new energy business.
The bold endeavour is Anant Ambani's passion project.
He has been vocal about his compassion for Indian wildlife, telling media he wants to create a safe haven for endangered, sick and abused animals.
Vantara says it rescues wildlife from vulnerable situations all over the world where abuse, neglect or culling may be occurring.
The Ambani scion was in global headlines last year for his star-studded wedding, held in Mumbai and estimated to have cost between $US600 million ($954 million) and $US1 billion ($1.6 billion).
Its guest list including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Kim and Khloe´ Kardashian, and many more global celebrities.
The youngest Ambani also held his pre-wedding celebrations at Vantara, with the glamorous guests attending in jungle-themed attire.
'Questions need to be asked'
When asked why Indian news websites were going so far as to take stories about Vantara down without explanation, one journalist said the media had to be braver.
"Some news outlets fold at the mention of legal action. Forget any actual legal action, they fold at just the mention of it," they said.
"That is the power of fear."
